Landry’s closing Claim Jumper restaurant in Temecula

The Claim Jumper restaurant on Rancho California Road will be closing at the end of May, a move by the chain’s parent company that will result in almost 80 people losing jobs.

The closure is permanent, according to a WARN filing issued by Landry’s Restaurants of Texas, which purchased the chain after it filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

Some of the workers at the Temecula location will be given the chance to transfer to affiliated locations. For most, their final day will be May 31.

From the notice: “The entire location/plant will be closed and our employees’ effective separation date will be during the 10 day period beginning on May 22, 2018 and ending on May 31, 2018. While most of the employees will be terminated the day after the closing, some will terminate a few days later.”

Have you been to a casual dining chain restaurant like Claim Jumper or TGI Fridays in the last year?

Fans of the restaurant mourned the news on their social media accounts Tuesday, recalling good times during happy hour and family gatherings with grandparents who love the chain’s towering slices of chocolate cake:

“We go there at least two to three times a month….I am so sad to hear this.”

Terry Turney, COO of Claim Jumper Restaurants, said in a statement this week the restaurant will close its doors on May 24.

“Due to a natural lease expiration, Claim Jumper Temecula located at 29540 Rancho California Road will close its doors on Thursday, May 24. We are grateful for the support of our community and encourage our guests to visit us at our other Claim Jumper locations in in Corona, Rancho Cucamonga and Carmel Mountain Ranch.”

I love Claim Jumper! While expensive, I always loved my visits there in the early ‘90’s. I moved to Texas in ‘96. I’m back in Las Vegas, my home town, and on occasion enjoy a cob sandwich to go. I hope that they don’t close my favorite CJ here.

Temecula location should have been featured on kitchen nightmares. The analysts clearly didn’t know our Claim Jumpers demographic, Church groups ended many events meeting up at claim jumper for dinner. Average age of the diners there was probably about 50 on most nights. Except on TVHS event nights. special evenining family dinner at Claim Jumper! The food quality dropped from great down to crap, and it was only by Claim Jumper’s reputation for quality that kept it alive for so long after the quality dropped. We all were going back several times thinking waitress/chef just had bad night, bad luck streak but nope, they sabotaged their own kitchen somewhere along the way and just refused to fix whatever the mistake was.

I worked here in 2002 -2003 and I now work here in 2018 during the closure , I have to say I can see why the “quality” has dropped , as most people are saying reason for closure is , as a cook in 2002 and a cook in 2018 I have noticed the workload and dependence on a single line cook has seemed to rise a little bit therefor resulting in rushed product , i never had to prep as a cook there , maybe there was more employees then , but things have changed now and as I have always took pride in my work and quality of my work I recently have found it difficult to do now at times which would result In sloppily thrown together entrees I believe or late tickets 🙁 this sucks to have to end it like this

Since about 2004, we’ve eaten there about four times a year, and never noticed any loss in quality of food, and the service was always good.

However, all too often in the last five years, our orders seemed to come out wrong. They were always quick and eager to fix things, but frankly we went to eat together, not watch each other eat while one of us had our order corrected. I will miss this place, and can’t wait until another restaurant opens in this fantastic location overlooking the duck pond.
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Unfortunately, we were regular Mimi’s customers, before both their service and food-quality dropped like a rock.

The very last time we ate there, we took friends with us. We both intended to redeem discount coupons we received in the mail. After being seated, we presented the coupons to the waitress, and she rudely informed us she would only redeem one coupon per table.

I asked if this meant we had to split up our party to redeem the coupons, and she said ‘yes.’

There were no stipulations printed on the coupons. I was ready for a fight, but nobody else was in the mood, so we accepted her refusal to honor both coupons (since we were there to eat together, not just eat at a discount).

Despite everything, we ordered our food, had a good time, submitted the one coupon, and left no tip.

Imagine how obligated I would have felt to give her a 20% tip if she had honored both coupons as expected and served us pleasantly.